Tour my house: Part II

It has been a while since I posted , so I thought I should get something up here! I have no festive ideas to share, so I thought why not continue with the house.

Next up is the kitchen. There are still a few things that aren't quite right, (like I want to add a dark brown bamboo blind as opposed to the white to warm up the space a bit) but I will get to those.

Here is the kitchen before renos (note: new appliances had been added cause there weren't any when we moved in, and the handles on the cabinets had been changed):









And here is the after:


















This breakfast bar and cabinets are new. Nothing existed on these walls before, which in a small house was a huge waste of space I thought.






So, all in all we:

-Painted the cabinets
-Installed new counter tops
-Installed new cabinets and a breakfast bar on the opposite wall of the existing cabinets
-Painted the walls
-Dman built out a bulkhead and installed a pantry door instead of that nasty plastic accordian door that came with the house
-Installed new light fixtures
-Installed a counter to ceiling glass mosaic and marble backsplash

I would have LOVED to have continued the hardwood floors into the kitchen, but alas, our budget did not allow for that. We may tile somewhere way down the road, but who knows.

It was ALOT of work, but well worth the result I think.

30 weeks!

Woohoo only 10 more to go!!! I set up my Christmas tree last week cause I am intense like that, so here is my 30 week pic in front of the tree:




k, now here is my 30 week question: I have been having ALOT of braxton hicks contractions - like one every 20ish minutes. And last night I was actually having them every 5 - 10 minutes. But then I drank lots of water and lied down and I was fine. But always every 20 minutes for about a week now.

Is this normal? Anyone else experienced this?

Leah xoxo

It's been a while....I have to post something!

Some pictorials of my adorably cute extended family over on the photography blog.

Hello thrid trimester!

It's official, I am in the last stages of this pregnancy! Man, time has flown.

Just thought I would share pics of me at 25 weeks since I haven't really shared any. I am big and feeling big time pregnant. Things like putting on my shoes and doing dishes (because I can't stand close to the sink) are getting really hard!





Oh man I don't enjoy these pictures. I have gained 30 pounds.....which is 35% of my body weight, and it shows! Oh well, pudgy faces were cute back in medieval times.

I just can't wait to meet our little girl. SO excited!!

Tour my house.....finally. Part I

I know, I know, its taken me about a decade to show you the house that we moved into back in December 09, but I didn't want to share until we were done renovations which we just finished a couple months ago.

I thought I would share one room at a time. You have already seen my master bedroom, and the nursery is still in progress and the office, well, its a disaster, so the rooms that I will be sharing, in order, are:

1. Family room/dining room
2. Kitchen
3. downstairs bath
4. Master bath
5. Other little areas like the front entry, etc.

Now, I will preface this with the admission that I am forgetful and didn't take before pics of most rooms. Or I took them but they were of the in between stages.

Furthermore, don't be expecting much. We have an older, little, humble 1200 sq ft house in the ghetto - not a brand new beauty. And I have done the entire house on an EXTREMELY tight budget - like seriously, most people spend on floors what we spent on our entire house. I have just been thrifty - tonnes of DIY projects, sales, kijiji, thrift stores, big boxed stores, and even auctions.

Anyway, without further ado, I give you our family/dining room BEFORE we started decorating/renos, but after we had moved in and I had done some picture hanging and switched out the light in the dining room:

YAWN!

So, I painted (yes I actually did paint - I don't do color on walls so I changed from a beige to an off-white), decorated, and we laid hardwood floors for the AFTER:

So there you have it - my family/dining room.

Hope you enjoyed part one of the tour! Stay tuned for Part II - the kitchen.

Leah xoxo

Nightmare on 35th Ave.....

Pregnancy often brings on VIVID dreams. I am no excpetion. Only mine aren't dreams, they are nightmares. I have about one every other night.

Last night's was the worst yet.

I dreamt that I was in present time, and Dman and I were separated (like as in we don't like eachother anymore separation). It was sad, I yearned for him. After about an hour or so (dream time) of dreaming about that, no storyline change, I started to spot. I called all the people I knew and asked if how much spotting was okay until I should go to the hospital. I wanted so bad to call Dman, but I didn't. Which made me sad.

Everyone told me it was fine, not to worry. But then my spotting got heavier and heavier. I was at my house upstairs in the bathroom and my parents were downstairs when all of a sudden I felt a rush. I reached down and a whole bunch of blood along with my baby came out.

I screamed. "Mom, call 911". I was in hesterics. I held her close to me telling her "you are okay baby girl", "I love you", "you are going to live". And then she slowly shut her eyes and died in my arms.

I woke up sobbing.

Isn't that horrible! What the what!?

These have got to stop.

Thanks and a wedding.....

Thank you to everyone who took the time to comment on my last post. It really really helps to hear from other moms, cause I do not know what I am doing here! I really appreciate it!

And check out the latest wedding I did here.

Have a great weekend!

Leah xoxo

Questions......

I think there should be a resource out there that is REAL and not some book off the shelf that can tell me all of the things I really need to know about this baby/new life that is speedily coming my way. But since I haven't found that, I am turning to YOU!

I need some answers!!

So, question #1: what are the "things" that you could not live without. That I should definately buy before the little gal comes. Like anything.....the other day I thought of nail clippers....stuff like that, that I wouldn't think of.

#2: Should I take prenatal classes? I think I have decided no on this one cause I don't want to get scared and stressed out about the impending pain and labor, but I still want opinions.

#3: In the dead of winter (ie. I am due in January) do I need one of those full body jacket/snowsuit bag thingys or if I have a car seat cover (you know, the fur lined ones) and a blanket and warm clothes, should the baby be fine?

#4: What clothes should I buy? I hear from some people to not buy much because I will get a whole bunch from people, but I have no hand-me-downs coming my way, so this makes me feel very unprepared. But I also have a small budget so I can't go hog wild.

I think that's about it for now. I would REALLY appreciate INPUT! Please!

Leah xoxo

It's a.......

GIRL!!!

We found out today and we are so excited!

Here she is (ignore the poor quality - my scanner isn't the greatest)

She has Dylan's nose!!

We love her already. Dylan knows she is going to have him wrapped around her little finger.

We had us a little scare.

Yesterday morning I woke up to a wicked pain in my lower abdomen. Like someone was stabbing me/really bad menstral cramp pain. Its okay, I thought, I probably just slept weird.

So I got up, got ready, and went to work. But every 10 minutes or so, I would have these pains that lasted for about 10 minutes. I couldn't stand up straight, I couldn't even cross my legs. It HURT! Don't worry I told myself, everything is fine (sidenote: our instincts are always right).

So then my boss asked me something from her office and I got up to go tell her the answer, but I couldn't get out of my chair it hurt so bad. "Leah! Pain in pregnancy is not normal - call your doctor!" she says.

So, I called my Mom, described it, and the she got emotional because she miscarried her first, and made me promise that I would call my OB. Then I called my sister-in-law - yup, its not normal she confirmed.

Then I called my doctor. Come right this minute they said. Okay, now I was scared. I called my husband in tears. Worst case senerios flooded my head. I cannot imagine loosing this baby and starting from square one again. That would be beyond devastating.

So, I met Dman at my OB's where they rushed me in. And with a quick ultrasound and cervical check, confirmed that nothing was wrong.

Apparently I am small - newsflash - and so, I am going to experience a lot of things that 'normal' sized people will not. My pain was a result of my ligaments being streched way too fast. Oh yeah, if I forgot to tell you, I am the size of an elephant now. Fun.

Seeing my baby kicking away and that little heart beating was the best feeling that I have had in a while. I am just so THANKFUL for the blessing that it is to be able to bring a child into this world. Stop and think about it for a second - it is a miracle.

I've been busy.

Couple new posts on the ole' photography blog.

Just thought I would let you know what I have been doing and why no posts.

Leah xoxo

2 years.

Two years ago today, Dman and I married. Hands down, best day of my life so far (I know that when the little bean shows up, this will probably change).

Can I just say, I am SO lucky. I married my best friend, and for that I would trade nothing.

He is so good to me. We laugh all the time about the silliest things. He knows my thoughts even before I express them. He embodies everything that a man, husband, and preisthood holder should. He is my example, my light, my everything.

We have a beautiful thing going on.

We celebrated the day on Saturday. Festivities included:

-Layed in bed until we felt like getting up

-Exchanged cards/love letters (we don't do presents...too expensive)

-Made a big breakfast consisting of fresh blueberry pancakes, eggs, and bacon

-Went to the temple to do sealings (yearly tradition.....I make it sound like we have been married for so long...this is only number 2)

-Went out for dinner to the Cactus Club. YUMMMMMM

-Came home and took the mutts on a walk (side note: during which, we stumbled across a teenage couple getting it on in broad view, while it was still light out -we were flabbergasted)

-Watched a romantic movie

On our way to the temple.......

My handsome hubby...

Ready for dinner....

Tonight we will write in our anniversary journal - this was Dman's "gift" to me last year - every year for the rest of our mortal existence we will write in this journal about the past year's events, post pictures of the current year's anniversary date, and insert our love letters to eachother. I treasure it already and this is only year number two.

I love my Dman.

Oh WOW!

I just felt my baby kick for the very first time. Just now. And today I am exactly 16 weeks.

It's like he/she is celebrating the mark....by kicking me!!

I had to ask a couple ladies at work....is this gas or digestion, or my baby kicking? We determined that since it hasn't stopped for about half an hour, and I haven't released any gas, and since it is on my side, it is most definately baby!

OH WOW!

Leah xoxo

I warned you...

....that my baby bump is a bit ridiculous.

So here we go. Me at 15 weeks:

I feel like I should be 25 weeks not 15!!!

So far I have gained 15 pounds. YIKES. I haven't been able to put on more than 2 pounds since I was 14!!! I have litterally been the same weight since junior high.

I did a pregnancy weight calculator thingy the other day, and if I continue gaining weight at the same rate, I will gain 60 pounds by the end of my pregnancy!!!

Oh my, oh my.

I am hoping my body is just playing catch up because I was underweight when I got pregnant. LET"S HOPE!!

In other news, I finally went on Diclectin and I feel like I partially got my life back!! I was trying to be strong and not go on any medication because I just didn't want to take anything that could even remotely harm my little bean. But by 3 months, I had had enough of puking my guts out all day every day.

Question for you moms out there: do you ever feel like 'yourself' again?

I mean, I got pregnant and now my body has been taken over by this little alien (who I LOVE), and I keep thinking 'I can't wait just to have him/her so I can have my body back' but that won't really be the case will it? Cause if I am breastfeeding, the boobs will be his/hers. Right now I am a walking incubator, and then I will be a walking smorgasbord, and then we will probably pop out another one.

Or maybe I should take the approach that now I am just more of me - fufilling my eternal role as incubator.

Yup, that's the winner.

Cause seriously, body being taken over aside, this whole pregnancy thing really is a miracle. I just can't stop revelling at the fact that there is a living human inside of me.

Pretty cool.

Anyway, I will try to update more. That is, when I am not passed out on the couch with a migrain, exhaustion, or other perils.

Leah xoxo

Expecting.

Remember this post and the trial I talked about?

Well, I am so elated to say that it is OVER and Dylan and I are expecting our first BABY!!!!!! I am due January 28th. And oh man, oh man, oh man, are we ever excited!

I debated sharing 'the trial' only because I don't like getting too too personal, but it helped/helps me when I read people's 'I made it through my trial' stories - they inspire me.

Disclaimer: I know that a lot of people deal with infertility, and many for a lot longer than I did. In no way, shape, or form am I trying to take awawy anything from anybody's experience. This is just mine.

So, I will take you back to a year and a half ago.

Dylan and I had been happily married for about half a year when we started to get the impression that we need to start trying to have a family. What the heck!?! No way! We were barely newlyweds, Dylan was a student, we were living in an apartment, as if we wanted to bring a baby into the mix. Where was this coming from?? About a month passed - the impression only got stronger. We prayed about it - yup, that's what we were supposed to do. We went to the temple about it - no mistaking it, we were supposed to start trying.

So we did.

A month passed. Then two. Then three. Then four. Okay, this is taking longer than I thought. Not to mention, even though we weren't neccessarily stoked when we got the impression to start having a family, as soon as we started trying, our hearts were in it. The possibility of what could be is addicting. Each month you eagerly wait for the day to come when your special friend doesn't come! After four months I was getting let down. But hey, I wasn't so nieve to think that this stuff doesn't take a while.

So five months went by, then six, then seven, then eight. I was starting to get really upset. Each month that I didn't get pregnant got harder and harder. It is so easy to sit here and type the words, six, seven, eight, but those were real months, each one of them with 30ish days - this was getting to be a long time!

But we kept at it. Nine months, then ten. I was getting depressed. My heart ached. Every day that we didn't have this child that we were trying for, seemed like an eternity. It was as if time was frozen, nothing moving forward. I was miserable at my job working 50-60 hours a week, but didn't know if I could leave because what if I got pregnant the next month - I needed mat leave!
And then Sadie died. That hurt bigtime. My only real baby - gone. I was SO MAD. I was SO SAD. Oh man that was hard. My heart split into two. Crying became a daily occurence.

Then came 11. Oh no, one more month and I was hitting the dreaded one year of trying and that means infertility.

12 months hit and I made an appointment with my family doctor. The day I went to see her I was filled with a renewed optimism - we were going to find out answers and finally get the ball moving forward. Well, that didn't happen. It went something like this:

DOCTOR: What brings you in today?
ME: My husband and have been trying to get pregnant for a year, and nothing.
DOCTOR: Well, how old are you?
ME: 23
DOCTOR: You are YOUNG! You have plenty of time. You don't need to be a parent yet. Why don't you just keep on trying for another year and then if nothing has happened we will start treatments.
ME: Because we want to start a family now for personal reasons. I don't think it matters what age I am. I want to start testing to get some answers. I don't think I am ovulating.
DOCTOR: Well there are no tests that can test whether or not you are ovulating.
ME: What? I know a girl who just had that very kind of test. It was a blood test.
DOCTOR: I don't know what test she got, because there is nothing that tests if you are ovulating.
ME: Doesn't it test for progesterone??
DOCTOR: No, but if you want you can go to the drugstore and buy a home ovulation test to see if you are ovulating. They aren't always accurate though. You might get some false negatives.
ME: What does that test test for?
DOCTOR: Progesterone.
ME: So you are saying that there is a plastic, over the counter, at home test that can test for progesterone, but the labs can't !?!?
DOCTOR: Yes.
ME: Okay thanks, I will get one of those. (Knowing full well that I would NEVER EVER EVER talk to her again - idiot. What med school did you go to!?!)
DOCTOR: Great, and then come in in about 6 months to follow up.
ME: Yup, bye.

I left that appointment completely and utterly CRUSHED. C-R-U-S-H-E-D. The waterworks immediately started. I called Dylan. I could barely talk I was crying so hard. He was sweet, loving and reasuring that we were eventually going to get pregnant. But I was lost. Where were the answers I was looking for? Who cared out there? What the heck Heavenly Father!?

I called a dear friend of mine who was going through the same trial, but I knew that her doctor was great. I got the number, called, pleaded my case, and prayed that this doctor would take on a new patient. A week later they called - yup, he would see me!

My NEW doctor is GREAT! He immediately ordered some tests and reffered me to a fertility specialist. Of course, each test, and appointment takes a while to get. I had to wait 3 months to get into see my fertility doctor. So 13 months hit, then 14 and 15.

But, when I met with him (for the second time) voila, we had our answer! Just as I had suspected months ago, I was not ovulating. Like not AT ALL! My hormones were all over the place.

So, bless my doctor's soul, he put me on Clomid instead of doing more tests which would have taken about another 3 months. He had a real get-er-done approach.

I was SO nervous going on clomid - what if it didn't work, then what? I was not ready for more dissapointment. I always knew clomid would be there as an option that works for most, and if it didn't work on me I seriously would have been devastated. But ladies and gents (well really, ladies) it worked FIRST month!

I, of course, had no patience and took a test the second I was a day late. Funny story. I peed on the stick and gave it the three minutes, fully expecting to go into the bathroom and read yet another false test. I had seen SO many of them.

When Dylan and I took a look at it I first saw the dark one line,

but then I saw a VERY faint second line.

What the........
Could this be...........
No, it can't be.........
Dylan, what do you think............

So I did what any modern young lady would do - I googled it.

And sure enough, a faint pink line means just as much as a dark one - a line is a line - WE WERE PREGNANT!!!!!! FINALLY!!!

We cried and hugged and laughed and said "can you believe it" more times than I can count.

I have been sick, but that is to be expected right? And everytime I throw up, I know why, and I am grateful (to be pregant, not to be throwing my guts up).

We got our first ultrasound at 10 weeks because I started showing at 6 weeks so my doctor wanted to rule out twins. We are just having ONE! FEWF! That ultrasound was the coolest experience of my life. Besides the fact that I was in SO much pain because I drank way too much water. The tech said that due to my size I only have to drink one cup....I drank 4! Anyway, after she called in Dylan and showed us the screen I started bawling. It was the greatest thing I have ever seen in my life. She said how great the baby looked and then he/she started kicking away! "oh boy, you have an active one" she says. GREAT! haha just what we want. The the little guy/girl waved at us. It was so distinct and SO perfect. I was instantaneously IN LOVE. I look at that picture all the time and just smile. I am so grateful.

An everyday MIRACLE that's what it is.

In all of it I can see Heavenly Father's grace, and it all makes sense to me now. He knew that we were going to have trouble getting pregnant, and prompted us to start trying a year and a half before we were actually going to start (we were going to start trying this summer). I am SO thankful that we listened to that prompting. We were scared but thank goodness.

HIS plan really always does work out.

I will post pictures later - my belly is a bit much for 3 months but everyone keeps telling me its cute, so I will choose to believe them!

Leah xoxo

My Bahama Mama experience

At least that is what the locals called me...."Hey pretty Bahama Mama, how you doin' today?"

I am back. Safe and Sound.

And after two weeks of being back I thought that hey, maybe I should post about my trip. Can you say lazy much? It just takes a lot to get back into the swing of things after being gone for two weeks...and one day.

So where to even being...ohhhh boy.

Well, we flew for 14 hours from Edmonton, to Toronto, then to Nassau Bahamas. When we got to Nassau we took a taxi to the marina that pops was mooring the boat at.

A funny side note - for those of you who don't boat, all boats have names for safety purposes - the name of my Dad's new boat is El Presidente (Spanish for 'The President") - so the Bahamian people started called him the President. For instance, he got his laundry back from the laundry place in a bag labeled "Mr. President" - if you know my dad, I thought that was pretty hilarious.

Anyway, when we arrived at the Marina, the four of us (myself, Dylan, sister, and mother) were less than impressed. This place was not fit for a 'vacation' - there wasn't even water in the pool! Now don't get me wrong folks, this chica can slum it - afterall, I did live in a third world country for two years and didn't have a real shower or toilet (like we are talking POVERTY) - but I was not up for that on this trip - this was supposed to somewhat resemble a vacation.

So, on the very first day we made the consecutive decision that we would be paying more and switching marinas - to where you might ask - have you ever heard of a place called the Atlantis?? If not, check this out. Yeah, we stayed there for 1 week.

No joke, the first person we meet upon arrival was a NFL pro-bowler (don't remember his name but it was a really big deal to Dylan). A NBA superstar was docked just down the way from us (again, don't ask me his name), and we heard of plenty of stars being there but never saw them because they have a private pool. Get this, the most expensive public room (there are private rooms that go for more) goes for $25,000 a night!!! Nuts!

So have I set the stage for how amazing this place was? Like nothing I have ever seen before. And we have stayed at some pretty nice places.

Here we are upon pulling into the marina:

Very excited!


No, that is not me, that is my sister.

The myriad of things to do might take me a week to explain, so I will go with the highlights.

There were these C-R-A-Z-Y waterslides everywhere. On this one you actually go through a tank of sharks:

To get to the tank of sharks you either went down a twisty slide or this drop of doom:

You can't really tell, but West Ed has nothing on this bad boy - seriously, STRAIGHT DOWN!

Now, I will intermission you with a brief tour of the hotel:

Here is a shot of one of like 15 glorious pools:


This was the one we went to everyday - it was so hard to choose - so many choices!

The famous archway which is a room - that's the one that costs $25,000 per night:

The architecture:

The lobby ceiling (thought it was cool):

The Atlantis chair:

Okay, continuing on. One of the other very neat things about this resort is that there are aquariums EVERYWHERE - and I seriously do mean everywhere. They were floor to ceiling so as if to include you in the underwater world.

This guy was seriously like 4 times my size!

Other happenings included the fact that we missed the Justin Beber concert by two days!

Yup, the Atlantis flies in superstars for its guests private viewing pleasure!

We went to the 'straw market' - lots of local arts and crafts for cheap:

And just enjoyed being by the pool and beach!

And one of us even jumped in the water by the boat - grungy if you ask me!

And we saw a new release movie every night at the free movie theatre - yeah a movie theatre in a resort!

A week later it came time to say goodbye to the Atlantis and to momma-bear (she did not want to sail from the Bahamas to Florida with us so opted to ply home from the Bahamas a week earlier than us).

Our first stop was Chub Cay - and it only took us about 8 hours to get there - can you sense my sarcasm? Short for sailing but a freakin' century for normal travel (ie. by car).

It truly was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been with water sooooooo clear - like clearer than a pool - no joke.

Funny story - we were snorkelling and swimming in the late afternoon/early evening and these jet-skiers were kind of circling us. And they would stop every now and then and watch us. We were getting kind of annoyed until they came up to our boat and told us that no one swims here after dusk. Why? Cause the tide goes out, and the gish go out, which means the sharks come in. Bad situation to be swimming in. Needless to say, we high-tailed our butts out of the water!

The we were off to our last stop before Florida - Bimini Island. We had to travel for about 17 hours to get to Bimini so after a long and pretty rough trip (8 foot seas) we decided that we wanted to go to a marina for the night as opposed to an anchorage as we needed our rest and the rocky sleep that an anchorage would provide us with would not suffice. So at 10pm in pitch black we tried to navigate our way through this channel which lead to the Marina. The navigation in the Bahamas leaves something to be desired however, and the channel was not properly marked so we ended up running aground! Bad news. Thank goodness it was only sand because if it had of been rock or coral we would have been in BIG trouble. We booked it out of that channel so fast. I was stearing and was so scared that I was shaking like a leaf. And because we could not safely make it into a bay or marina we had to anchor in unprotected water - it was a horrible night. So we were up early the next morning and off to Florida. Again, in pretty rough water.

My Captain husband steering us through a thunderstorm (note the calm water - before it got rough):

When we finally reached Florida we were SO happy. I didn't end up taking a lot of pics in Florida because we spent the majority of our time shopping and eating and who wants to see pics of that?

We had fun though and got a lot og GREAT deals!

Eating a slice of dollar pizza at the Miami Bayside market:

And outside of the famous Bubba Gump's!

Whew, I don't know if I can write anymore. So, that was my trip! All in all, fun. Really, really hot, but a great get-away. Glad to be home to my pooches and house though!

Leah xoxo